The application of paint to objects such as vehicle bodies is a sensitive process. The quality, durability, and color matching of the paint are important in producing a high quality product. In order to maintain quality, the surface appearance of the vehicle body is measured. Conventionally, the surface appearance is measured using a hand held imaging system that qualitatively measures surface appearance. These sensors are handled by an operator who must manually apply the sensor against the surface of the body of the vehicle in the position normal to the surface. Although these sensors are useful, there exists a wide horizon for improvement. Particularly, the use of these sensors are limited by an operator's inconsistencies in not accurately placing or aiming the sensor toward the vehicle body, which produces unreliable quantitative measurements for paint process control. Accordingly, the surface appearance measurements are typically inaccurate. Because a significant reliance is placed upon the operator, a significant amount of error is introduced in the quality control of the paint process.
The embodiments described herein were conceived in view of these and other disadvantages of conventional systems.